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Old Etrandish
Old Etrandish was the stage of the Etrandish language between 800 BEKE and 0 BEKE/AEKE. It is important to note that neither Old Etrandish nor its successor Middle Etrandish were in no way a unified monolithic languages, but both had a variety of dialects. Evolution from Proto-Human Consonants * Proto-Human word-final /z/ became silent. * Rhotacism of Proto-Human /z/ to ɹ or r̝. * Deaffication of Proto-Human /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ to /s/ and /z/ * Palatalization of /k ɣ g/ to ʝ d͡ʒ before and after front vowels. This also blocked the word-initial hardening of /ɣe/ and /ɣi/ to ge and gi, which became ʝe and ʝi instead. /nɣi/ and /nɣe/ (previously pronunced as ŋgi and ŋge) were palatalized to nd͡ʒi and nd͡ʒe. Word-initial /dʒ/ later also apeared from Wood Elven loanwords. * The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ hardened to g word-initially, unless it was preceeding a front vowel, when it became a palatal fricative ʝ instead. * Complete shift of /sk/ to /ʃ/ in all environments. * Shift of /x/ to /h/, /xʷ/ to /ʍ/ * Shift of /ɸ/ and /β/ to /f/ Vowels * Monophthongization: ** /ɑi̯/ -> /ɑː/ ** /ɑu̯/ -> /oː/ ** /eu̯/ -> /øː/ ** /iu̯ ui̯/ -> /yː/ * Proto-Human lax vowels ʊ lowered to /e o/ unless the following syllable had a corresponding non-lax vowel in it. For example, sʊŋg became /soŋg/, but sʊngu became /suŋgu/ (and eventually /suŋg/, because of the loss of word-final short vowels mentioned below) * Proto-Human /ɔː ɛː/ shifted to /oː æː/. * I-Umlaut: /o oː u uː/ fronted to /ø øː y yː/ if the following syllable had /i/ in it. The /i/ was then deleted. * U-umlaut: /e eː i iː/ rounded to /ø øː y yː/ if the following syllable had /u/ in it. The /u/ was then deleted. * A-Umlaut: /i iː y yː u uː/ lowered to /e eː ø øː o oː/ if the following syllable had /ɑ/. The /ɑ/ was then deleted. * A-fronting: /ɑ ɑː/ universally fronts to /æ æː/, unless it was /ɑː/ originating from Proto-Human /ɑi̯/, or the following syllable has a back vowel (/ɑ/ excluded). This shift happened after the A-Umlaut took place, as it did not block the umlaut. * Loss of word-final short vowels, shortening of word-final long vowels. Consonants * The existence of the palatal lateral /lʲ~ʎ/ and palatal rhotic /rʲ/ is questionable, and if they existed, they most likely existed only in the syllabic position (see below). * The Proto-Human /z/ was rhotacized in Old Etrandish. We do not know how the successor of /z/ was pronunced - either as an alveolar approximant ɹ or fricative trill r̝ - but we do know that it was kept distinct from /r/ until 550 BEKE, when it finally merged with /r/. * The phoneme /h/ had a wide range of allophones - voiceless glottal approximant h word-initially, voiced glottal approximant ɦ between vowels, velar fricative x in syllable coda after back vowels, palatal fricative ç in syllable coda after front vowels. * The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ had the palatal approximant ʝ early on before and after front vowels. Around 400 BEKE, ʝ merged with /j/ and ɣ with /w/, reintroducing diphthongs to native Etrandish vocabulary. * The voiced ð were the medial allophones of /f θ/. /z/ was different, considering how it came from the deaffrication of the proto-Human /d͡z/ (the original proto-Human /z/ rhotacised to ɹ or r̝, and eventually merged with /r/). * The voiceless sonorants n̥ l̥ r̥ ʍ were the allophones of /m n l r w/ after /h/. The Old Etrandish /hm hn hl hr hw/ clusters originated from the proto-Human /xm xn xl xr xʷ/. * The consonants /l r/ had velarized allophones ɹ before other consonants, but not word-finally or next to each other :the /rl lr/ clusters were realized as lr, not as ɫ. Syllabic /l̩ r̩/ were never velarized, in fact, they may have been even palatalized r̩ʲ or r̩ʲ, evidenced by their word-initial dissimilation to /li ri/ in Middle Etrandish. Syllabic Consonants With the phonemization of umlauts - caused by the lost vowels - and the rhotacism of proto-Human /z/ to /r/, Old Etrandish acquired syllabic consonants, namely /m̩ n̩ l̩ r̩/ and later /ŋ̩/ too (Late Old Etrandish was already in the process of coalscing /ng/ into /ŋ/, /n̩g/ to /ŋ̩/). The syllabic /l̩ r̩/ may or may not have been palatalized r̩ʲ or r̩ʲ, speculated because of their word-initial dissimilation to /li ri/ in Middle Etrandish. Some linguists believe that syllabic /n̩/ was also a palatalized n̩ʲ or ɲ̩, based on the fact that it dissimilated to /ɛn/ in Middle Etrandish, as opposed to the /um ɔŋ/ from /m̩ ŋ̩/. Other linguists believe that the syllabic /n̩/ originally dissimilated to /ən/, then /ə/ became /ɛ/ everywhere except before /r/, leaving /ɛn/ as the final result. Vowels Monophthongs Around 150 BEKE, /æː/ diphthongized to /æi̯/ in the majority of Old Etrandish dialects. Diphthongs Around 400 BEKE, the early Old Etrandish voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ and its palatal allophone ʝ vocalized to /j/ or /w/, reintroducing diphthongs to native Etrandish vocabulary (previously Early Old Etrandish only had /ɑi̯/, /oi̯/ and /ui̯/ from Wood Elven loanwords). Category:Elven languages Category:Extinct languages Category:Languages of Artograch